how to add thresholds for assignment groups when a course has weighted assignments

[TracyMiddleton]

If we have a course with 2 components (ie. a lab component and a lecture component), and we have the two components weighted as 80% of the grade and 20% of the grade, is there a way to also set a threshold for each component in order to pass the course? (ie. you must receive at least 70% in each section to pass the course)

So, the overall course grade would be: 

Component 1 = 80%

Component 2 = 20%

**must pass both components at a minimum of 70% to pass the course. 

Can someone assist with how to create the additional threshold piece of this scenario in Canvas?

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @TracyMiddleton,

As far as I know, Canvas doesn't have functionality like this right now.  It can certainly add up the individual components and weigh them appropriately for the overall score, but a minimum threshold for assignment groups doesn't exist.  This could always change in the future though.  if you'd like Instructure to consider developing a feature like this, you could post in the Ideas area (it wouldn't surprise me if a similar idea has already been suggested, but I could not find anything when I searched).

-Chris

[James]

@TracyMiddleton 

Chris ( @chriscas ) is correct that this isn't natively supported with Canvas.

One could work around it, but it would require outside work.

For example, one could export the gradebook to Excel, then use Excel's IF() statement to check if the score was 70% in both of the categories. You could export this back into a new assignment that didn't count towards the final grade but would put it into Canvas. You could also make it complete/incomplete grade. While putting that into the gradebook wouldn't enforce them passing, it could explain why they didn't.

You could couple this with the grade override feature that allows you to change the final grade.

Now, all of that could be automated. For example, you can get the grade for each assignment group from GraphQL (course > assignmentGroupsConnection  > gradesConnection ). There are a couple of different API calls that would allow you to store a grade (GraphQL is supposedly faster, but there is a batch mode through the REST API that doesn't suffer irregularities like hiding grades or failing to "use same score" for resubmissions that the GraphQL does). There is a GraphQL mutation for setting the grade override.